


Scare and Schism

by Artemis_Crimson



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: A vechicle for my hunter vangaurd replacement headcanons really, Accidental Confessions of Love, EDIT: written before season of the hunt but it’s got Uldren the new light so, Game: Destiny 2: Shadowkeep DLC, I finished off scope and scourge and she went 'oh are you gonna ship the young wolf and uldren', Other, Post-Game: Destiny 2: Forsaken DLC, The Moon - Freeform, This is my girlfriend's fault, and I talked myself into it SO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Crimson/pseuds/Artemis_Crimson
Summary: In which amends and connection have paved a pathway
Relationships: Crow/Guardian, Guardian & Crow (Destiny), Guardian & Uldren Sov, Guardian/Crow (Destiny), Guardian/Uldren Sov
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9





	Scare and Schism

**Author's Note:**

> Have the third sequel/au of my original season of the dawn inspired but it's set one year ago one shot? Proceeded by [Scape and Scale ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22822021) then [Scope and Scourge ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24940633)

The Young Wolf is comforting a nightmare. Uldren thinks, less privately than perhaps he should, that this is absolutely typical of them. It’s not one of the beasts determined to tear them apart, not directly at least. Instead the thing echoes of a long dead guardian telling them what went wrong when they waged this war. They listen, attentive. The thing can’t see, just gets kindled by guardians nearby and panics blindly while the record plays again and again speaking of failure and death. A desperate attempt to be heard. It’s not sentient, not really. But it’s the nightmare of a guardian who died overrun by foes and that means they’ll definitely make a point of cleaning out this area and returning here with the spoils.  
Uldren groans, gun barking when he picks a captain’s shield off.  
“I’m going ahead to scout, find me when you’re done or need a break from running endless errands!”

A marauder explodes behind him, knife falling in front of his boot. His Guardian taps their helmet with two fingers palm out to him, goodbye salute. Uldren returns the same two fingers, back of his hand and doesn’t look around. Laughter echoes double, faintly there on the edge of audible register through the regolith spires and like white noise warmth through his comm.

The Moon is full of crevices and caves that go nowhere. Cracks thick as a Sparrow leak Hive mist. Tunnel’s stained ink black save for glowing wormrot or helium coils that have been carved deeply, detritus from every era this wretched rock has seen, full of things meant to be there and intruders both.  
Uldren dives into the darkest parts. Tracks the routes everyone takes. Points out where caches might be hidden and where enemies hide theirs. Finds strongholds, or potential places for them. He slaps his sector stencil up to spray paint the chalky white sigils when needed, be it a new place or faded unmaintained old sign. He takes old maps to update when he can Awoken scouted, golden or city age era markings when he’s lucky, dark age when he’s not. If there is nothing to base it on then Uldren plays cartographer. He anonymously bribes (occasionally blackmails) people for their information. Glory hounds, wanderers, duty dodging Hunters with too much time on their hands, the few Hidden he’s sussed out, mortal seekers.  
He weaves a map like chainmail of every place touched by-  
-of every place they both go, rather. Pretty final formats all sent to the Vanguard. Updates if needed packaged just as neatly. Uldren knows they assigned a dozen scouts to double check all the information in the beginning. At least now, even if they don’t trust him, or the leash they think the Wolf must keep him on.  
If he has nothing else, at least they trust in the quality of his work. This is, still spite. He can admit that much to himself. It’s not all that, he’s got a scrapyard salvage sense of pride in himself now too. The Wolf’s thanks when he knows something helpful. It’d been worth it with only spite. He doesn’t think of what more he has and leaps into a promising new abyss.

Eris Morn says many cryptic things, Young Wolf slightly more experienced in interpreting them. She doesn’t have many words to spare, everything is chosen carefully. Precise like a bolt in a rifle, carved lovingly as arrows fletched in violet. Uldren can’t read her, but she seems dangerous and he seems to be relatively alive so he assumes he’s not truly hated for what he did. She’s certainly never shot him before. The Wolf usually drags him to her sanctuary twice a week. They pick up a map. Follow it. Pulls the phantom buzzing static laid in their mind physically out of their head and wrap it ‘round the puzzle-spindle for Eris to weave into something coherent. She’s fond of them to do such painful sounding work, so Uldren, despite their vague not quite animosity gets to hear all the bits of wisdom she deposits.  
He tumbles looking for a good place rest, ready to make his momentum reverse in an instant, and unbidden a bit of her advice surfaces. Luna’s sickness in part, is the result of thousands of Guardian deaths, the nightmares of their final moments and everything dreadful they killed. He catches himself on a boot-wide ledge, kicks a pebble down, calculates the trajectory of his next fall and jumps. Adrenaline tempo heartbeat to drown out the wonder what, no- who they see. If it’s. Well.

There’s no bright dawn to easily track the turning of time here. He looses himself, not his path mind you. Even without Pulled Pork’s helpful recording, or the messy map he sketches. He’s not lost in the physical way, when a comm crackles to life calling him back to the surface through kilometres of interference. It’s not an order, just an invitation. Still he sighs, takes it. Opens his maps searching for likely connections.  
“Keep the line open, the fast way to the surface is through a nest of Hive”

“You don’t have to take the painful way?” There’s another wry sort of laugh in their voice, an inside joke. Uldren takes the first wave ignoring muck killing Thralls leaves behind for thoughts of those shortcuts on Nessus which have somehow always managed to go through the largest Vex he’s yet to see. The slow way, the painful way.  
“A nest, not a collective which I swear have a personal grudge against me.”

“Maybe if you stopped dancing on the scrap they’d stop remembering you.”

“Maybe if someone stopped invading all their strongholds instead and let someone else take a turn it wouldn’t matter if I was memorable.”

“Mm, no. Bet they’d come looking for their missing dance partner.”

It’s so batter off fact he fails to stifle his snort of laughter. Alerting the Knight guarding this creche. If the noise he makes when the sword almost takes his head off is undignified that’s between the Wolf, himself and their Ghosts, no one else. They’re quiet through the fight, if it’s because they’re trying to hear the fight, or the sound of sunlight poured through and they’re trying to let him concentrate on his shots he’s not sure. Only that when embers and ashes are all that’s left, when their careful voice rings through again there’s no reconnection static.  
“Regretting not going the long way around?”

“Please, I could have taken them in my sleep.”

A faint trace of the dark sky peaks through a crevice and he begins the final steps of his ascent. Shimmering armour gauntlets block the stars suddenly, for a heartbeat he’s startled enough to grab for his knife. He recognizes the hands right after and thankfully doesn’t stab them. He’d never hear the end of it. Uldren grabs them instead, kicking off right as they haul him up. He almost stumbles, they’re kind enough not to mention it. They squeeze his forearm, brief affectionate contact. They don’t touch him often and they almost never hold him, never in any way. The Wolf doesn’t offer even welcome ties, they give only freedom. Then letting go they tilt their head playful as the temple beasts they took their title from.

“Now you’ve got chitin dust all over your pretty cloak though. Surprised you’d risk that.”

“Ha, ha. I only risk Hive stench because you’d be overcome by conniptions if I took too long.”

“Can’t be blamed for worrying, won’t make me feel guilt about it.”

From them it’s not an admission, but Uldren is not the best at biting his tongue. He brings up the thing he’s not meant to talk about.

“I can never quite figure why you wouldn’t, prefer my continued absence after.”

It’s not angry, he manages to cut himself off. Uldren holds those small mercies close as they size him up, step back, and measure what they want to say beyond a suddenly inscrutable visor. If he hadn’t spent so long with the taciturn bastard he thinks this long pause wouldn’t be only terrifying. Slowly they nod, twice, to themself. Welcome familiarity at last.

“I think people deserve second chances. We, both of us did. I’m grateful you let mine happen.”

Uldren almost wants to tease them about how he didn’t have much choice with how they put things originally, how he doesn’t have a choice at all anymore but he quashes that impulse for sounding too much like he doesn’t want to be here. The choice isn’t his because he couldn’t wish to be anywhere else. He focuses on stifling that, organizing the runaway thoughts bursting in his head.

“You’d be the only one to look at it like that I wager. Bet that telling if I actually loved you or if it’s only because nobody else would give me more than the time of day, or another bullet in my brain too.

Realizes what he’s said.

He’s never imagined a face with surprise for them. It’s easy to map horror, disgust. A second impulse to correct, as he continues his assessment. The shock lingers. This silence makes the terror of the last feel paltry, pathetic. He’s fairly certain he’s left nightmares with less panic than this.

“Right then. I should go.”  
He sets off stiffly in the worst faux casual march ever managed, all he can manage. At least until he gets around the closest outcropping out of their sight-line. Then he’s sprinting to the closest pit of the Hellmouth he can. Pulled Pork is lagging behind when he hops off the edge. Fortunate. He does not want to to think about this for as long as he can, even if it’s just seconds.

Rather in the veil between Uldren thinks about how he has his own ship. He doesn’t talk about it, Pulled Pork isn’t allowed to either. Still, hidden in subspace is his very own (secondhand) jumpship. It’s a City made thing, a tiny Runereed. He’d bought it off a Hunter who’d been too busy babbling about sparrow modifications to realize who he was talking to. He keeps it tucked away in his portable vaultspace. Doesn’t talk about it because he might be expected to fly it. Uldren is an excellent pilot, he’s not worried about the technical aspects, the instincts. And he’s not exactly worried about the vehicle being lacklustre either, it’s been modded to the gills for speed and carefully maintained over the years. 

No, he’s worried about flying alone. All the empty cramped space after too long with only his Ghost. Worried about what if tagging along was to become a, thing. What would be asked. It’s fine this way. It’s a choice. He knows he has the choice. A option offered and an option he built on his own. Uldren’s considered asking to dig his old reef vessel out of Mars, sure. That’s another he could have. But if he doesn’t, doesn’t mention his own he can just follow. Of course he goes where the Wolf does, they share a ship. Of course the Wolf goes with him. How dreadful that he must reveal it, or deal with the awkward flight home. Uldren would rather not think of this mess at all. He doesn’t pull himself back to life just yet, though he feels the impatient updraft of life.

* * *

The Young Wolf stares almost blankly at the kicked up dust Uldren’s hasty retreat had left. 

“Huh.”

Quickly after Pulled Pork calls out cheerful and anxious as ever that there’s a Guardian down.  
They hadn’t been expecting that. Staring at the the tracks, and then the pit a moment longer, another soft exhale of a question mark. Then dusting themself off, they follow his path. A slow even march with crunching footsteps. Pace set so he could hear and bolt if he still needed privacy, a moment to collect his thoughts. They rounded the bends, picked over gravel and found his Ghost still hovering, waiting for resurrection. Their own spinning into existence to fruitlessly peak over the cliff. The trio waits. Uldren staying firmly dead.  
When their own Ghost gives up and blinks back out of view they sigh again and extend a hand to Pulled Pork. Physically they don’t need to move, a shell is only a causal solid after all. Rather, they reach beyond, the hand is there for reassurance. Threading one’s own warm, foreign Light through another’s can force them back to life. Like twining fingers together to help someone up. Like shocking a heart to beat again. Uldren is wrapped around their wrist and remade. They pull him back and slip to stand between him and the edge. Hands already outstretched, asking to slow down, careful as a barrier before he’s all the way back.  
Uldren landed unerringly nimble as ever, off balance nonetheless.

“Don’t- don’t worry about it.”

They’d asked an impossible thing, thoughtlessly. They’d blundered on.

“It’s fine, we don’t need to talk about. Anything if you don’t want to.”

Uldren gives them a look of blank despair and a horrible strangled noise. They’re pretty sure he’d never let them live down if they’d said anything that untranscribable in response to a question.  
Despite everything it makes them want to smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also thanking my girlfriend, because Uldren going ah, I fucked up and leaping off a cliff, and his accidental confession are both her ideas!


End file.
